Tag: repentance

This past Sunday, I was coming down with the upper respiratory infection I now am getting over. It really came on suddenly, with a vengeance, and I was thinking last weekend if I took care of myself it would all go away quietly. On Sunday night, my mother told me, “you better go to the doctor.” I thought, no, I’ll just wait a couple of days and it will go away.

Well, it didn’t. Monday it was much worse, and I took Mom’s advice and went to see my doctor. I’m glad I did because I’m actually making progress and feeling a little better each day. But to get there, I had to admit that I was sick, that I needed a physician, which is exactly what our Gospel reading calls us to do this morning.

That one line is significant: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.” Anyone who has battled an addiction will tell you how true it is. You cannot make any progress is wellness in any aspect of life if you don’t admit you’re sick. And we all have difficulty doing that sometimes, I think, and much to our demise.

It’s important that we learn to do that in the spiritual life. If you don’t think you need a physician for your spiritual life, congratulations, you can skip Lent. In fact you don’t even need a Savior! I say that in jest, but really it’s true. Jesus is very clear today: he came to call sinners to conversion, and that includes all of us. All of us, myself included, maybe even foremost among all, need conversion in our spiritual lives. And the good news is that Jesus gives us Lent to do just that. Be converted, be healed, be made whole so that the glory of Easter can brighten our lives.

So our reflection this morning is two-fold. First, where and how do I need the Divine Physician in my life right now? And second, invite him in and let him heal us.

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I don’t know if it’s ever easy to listen to the news any more. Unrest in the middle east, abuse scandals in the entertainment industry and political arena, crime in our cities, and so much more. And all of those are the man-made problems: they are byproducts of the reign of sin in the world.

And so as we enter into Advent this year, I think we Advent more than ever. We need Jesus to come and put an end to all our foolishness, to fix all our brokenness, and heal all our sin and shame. I am guessing the followers of Saint John the Baptist felt the same way. They dealt with all the same stuff that we do: corruption in government, poverty, racism, and crime – none of this is new to our day and age, unfortunately – it never seems to go away. And so they did what I think has to be a model for all of us today: they came to John, acknowledged their sins, and accepted the baptism of repentance.

They came to John, because at that point, Jesus wasn’t in full swing with his ministry, and they were seeking something new and something good. We then, might come to Jesus in the same way, come to the Church, seeking something good and something new. And then, like them, we have to acknowledge our sins – personal sins and those in which we participate as a society. And then we have to accept the process of repentance. We can’t keep sinning; we have to repent, literally be sorry for our sins and turn away from them, as we turn back to God. That’s an important Advent message for every time and place.

It genuinely strikes me that, if we’re ever going to get past the bad stuff going on in our nation and our world, if we’re ever going to finally put an end to whatever sadness this world brings us, we have to begin that by putting an end to the wrong that we have done. That’s why reconciliation is so important. What each of us does – right or wrong – affects the rest of us. The grace we put forward when we follow God’s will blesses others. But the sin we set in motion when we turn away from God saddens the whole Body of Christ. We are one in the Body of Christ, and if we are going to keep the body healthy, then each of us has to attend to ourselves.

So today, I am going to ask you to go to confession before Christmas. I don’t do that because I think you’re all horrible people or anything like that. I do that because I know that we all – including me – have failed to be a blessing of faith, hope and love to ourselves and others at some point, and I know that so many people struggle with persistent sins, nasty thorns in the flesh, day in and day out. And God never meant it to be that way. He wants you to experience his love and mercy and forgiveness and healing, and you get that most perfectly in the Sacrament of Penance.

So speaking of confession, here’s one of mine: There was a time in my life that I didn’t go to confession for a long time. I had been raised at a time in the Church when that sacrament was downplayed. It came about from what I came to realize was a really flawed idea of the sacrament and the human person. But the Church has always taught that in the struggle to live for God and be a good person, we will encounter pitfalls along the way. We’ll fail in many ways, and we will need forgiveness and the grace to get back up and move forward. That’s what the Sacrament of Penance is for!

One day, I finally realized that I needed that grace and I returned to the sacrament. The priest welcomed me back, did not pass judgment, and helped me to make a good confession. It was an extremely healing experience for me, and now I make it my business to go to the sacrament as frequently as I can, because I need that healing and mercy and grace. And you do too. So please don’t leave those wonderful gifts unwrapped under the tree. Go to Confession and find out just how much God loves you.

When you do find that out, you’ll be better able to help the rest of the Body of Christ to be the best it can be. When your relationship is right with God, you will help the people around you know God’s love for them too. That kind of grace bursts forth to others all the time.

This year, we have plenty of opportunities to receive the Sacrament of Penance. We have a Reconciliation Service scheduled for Thursday, December 21 at 7:00pm. We are also hearing confessions twice a day every Saturday until Christmas: after the 7:30am Mass, and again at 3:00pm.

If you have been away from the sacrament for a very long time, I want you to come this Advent. Tell the priest you have been away for a while, and expect that he will help you to make a good confession. That’s our job. All you have to do is to acknowledge your sins and then leave them behind, so that Christmas can be that much more beautiful for you and everyone around you. Don’t miss that gift this year: be reconciled.

Pride and presumption are insidious sins. They make any kind of grace impossible, for they even deny that grace is needed or wanted. If we have no need of a Savior, then no relationship with God is even possible. And not having a relationship with God is something we call “hell.” So the disciple doesn’t get to harbor pride and doesn’t get to presume that God will take care of her or him. Instead the disciple must be very mindful of God, and must constantly nurture the relationship in such a way that they are caught up in the very life of God.

The Hebrew exiles in Babylon realized how far they were from this relationship, and with the prophet Baruch, pray a prayer of repentance. And that was an experience the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida needed to have. They were totally unmindful of God, and they refused to repent. Which is inconceivable given the mighty deeds Jesus had been doing among them. Even a ton of bricks falling on them wouldn’t seem to get them to repent. Jesus calls them to task on it. Who knows if that had an effect on them. What’s important is that we too are called to repentance every time we are so presumptuous of God’s mercy and favor that we refuse to repent of the things that separate us from Him.

The disciple is called to humbly place himself or herself in God’s mercy, acknowledging dependence on a Savior who has loved us into existence and sustains those who follow him. The disciple shuns pride and presumption, and humbly prays with the Psalmist, “For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.”

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“You are not far from the kingdom of God.” That would be, the most reassuring thing we could hear from our Lord! To know that you’re on the right track — that your thoughts and heart’s desires are in line with God’s will — that would be a wonderful thing to know. And today’s Scriptures give us the roadmap for finding that reassurance.

Step one is repentance. The prophet Hosea wrote of Israel’s repentance. Israel, as a nation, as we well know, had turned away from the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They had turned to the false gods of their neighbors and had worshipped idols. Hosea’s prophecy had been all about calling them back, urging them to return to the Lord who loved his people and yearned for them like a spurned lover. In today’s first reading, Hosea prophecies the promise that God will accept back his wayward lover and will restore the people of Israel to his own loved possession.

Step two is to hear the voice of God. “If only my people would hear me,” the Psalmist says, “and Israel walk in my ways, I would feed them with the best of wheat, and with honey from the rock I would fill them.” God longs to fill his faithful people with everything that they need to sustain life and live their faith. All we have to do is hear his voice, to follow his commands, and walk in his ways. This hearing the voice of God requires a steadfast faithfulness that will not be enticed by strange gods or flashy idols. There is a single-mindedness that is called for here: the faithful are called not to hear God as one voice among many, but to hear God alone.

And step three is love. In today’s Gospel, Jesus famously boils the commandments down to two: love of God and love of neighbor. Again, there is an underlying single-mindedness: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Love of God and neighbor isn’t a third or fourth priority, if we ever get around to it. Love is prime: love must the first inclination of the heart, thought of the mind, and action of life.

What does it take for us disciples to be not far from the Kingdom of God? It takes a Lent of repentance, a desire to hear and meditate on God’s Word and his presence in our lives, and then to love like there was nothing else to do in the whole world. Maybe we’re not there yet, all of us, as we approach our Easter joy. But at this mid-point of Lent, maybe we can come a little closer by asking God for the desire to change our hearts.

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Many people who have been away from the Sacrament of Penance for a long time have said that they were afraid to come back to the Church because they felt like their sins defined them. That they walked around with some kind of scarlet letter on their persons. I think this is the experience that Isaiah is getting at when he says, “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.”

Our sins do not define us, but our repentance does. And that repentance has to include a commitment to justice for those we have marginalized: “redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.” Our penance and our righteousness has to be approached in humility, remembering that those who humble themselves will be exalted. Our repentance has its reward, as the Psalmist tells us: “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.”

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We’re still in the opening chapters of human history in our first reading, and in these opening chapters we see some of the less beautiful parts of human nature. The first reading reads like an exposition of deadly sins, and these sins have continued to plague humanity ever since.

We start with envy, as Cain laments that his offering was not accepted with the same favor as was his brother, Abel’s. We move from envy to murder, with Cain committing the very first fratricide, killing his very own brother. From there, we go to apathy, as Cain rejects the opportunity to be his brother’s keeper. And then we meet false witness, as he lies about the murder that he committed. And if all of that isn’t enough, Cain then complains about his punishment as if it was something he didn’t deserve. If he’d only tried repentance, or expressed sorrow for his sins, or even accepted responsibility for what he’d done, maybe things would have turned out differently.

But, in this opening act of human history, we see God’s mercy. God does not remit the entirety of Cain’s punishment, but promises that even his death would be unacceptable. Maybe we should think about that in regard to the death penalty: if even God doesn’t condone the murder of a murderer, then who are we to do that? So God marks Cain, as we all are marked with God’s presence at our baptism. So even in this very early story of our history, we can see that baptism was always intended for our salvation.

The Psalmist this morning says that we absolutely cannot profess God’s commandments and sing his praises, without also accepting God’s discipline and following God’s word. A sacrifice of praise is a life lived with integrity, and that is the sacrifice that God wants of us in every moment.

There’s a lot of talk about water in these readings today, and when that happens, we know that it means the talk is really about baptism. We ourselves are the sick and lame man who needed Jesus’ help to get into the waters of Bethesda. The name “Bethesda” means “house of mercy” in Hebrew, and that, of course, would be the Church. We see the Church too in the temple in the first reading, from which waters flow which refresh and nourish the surrounding countryside. These, of course, again are the waters of baptism. Lent calls us to renew ourselves in baptism. We are called to enter, once again, those waters that heal our bodies and our souls. We are called to drink deep of the grace of God so that we can go forth and refresh the world.

But what really stands out in this Gospel is the mercy of Jesus. I think it’s summed up in one statement that maybe we might not catch as merciful at first: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” It’s hard to imagine being ill for thirty-eight years, but I’m pretty sure missing out on the kingdom of God would be that one, much worse, thing. There is mercy in being called to repentance, which renews us in our baptismal commitments and makes us fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.